Senator Elizabeth Warren bent the rules of presidential flirtation last month when she said she’d take a “hard look” at a 2020 White House campaign after she completes her re-election bid next month.

But Warren’s actions, in particular, her spending on digital advertising, show she’s already looking at 2020. Hard.

Warren has emerged this year as the third-highest spender on digital ads — behind only President Trump and Beto O’Rourke, a Texas Democrat who is running in the country’s highest-profile Senate race. Unlike O’Rourke, Warren’s Senate race is not competitive. And unlike Trump, she’s not the president.

But her national aspirations are spurring her to get an early start on laying crucial groundwork for a potential White House bid. Part of that job entails expanding her footprint across the country. And that footprint is not just digital. She is peddling Warren merchandise on the Internet customized for voters in all 50 states. She’s dropping into states to help raise money and stump for allies in critical contests.

The Globe, along with the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan Washington clearinghouse for the study of campaign spending, used newly available data from Facebook to take the first look at Warren’s digital advertising strategy. The review revealed how Warren has mounted a robust effort that’s caught the attention of her potential rivals for the Democratic nomination and drawn the ire of the Republican challenger in her Senate race.

In the last two weeks alone, Warren has run 401 separate digital ads on Facebook, seen by as many as 10 million people. These aren’t all geared for Massachusetts: Her ads are getting four times as many eyeballs in other states. Especially noteworthy is her use of Facebook advertising in Oklahoma, the ruby-red state where she grew up. It is a key part of her middle-class biography, a place she’s likely to highlight a lot more if she runs for president.

The majority of those seeing Warren’s digital ads on Facebook are being asked for their e-mail addresses and not money, according to the analysis. That means Warren is building a national list, not a war chest. At least so far.

“She is positioning herself to be able to run if she wants to,” said Kenneth Pennington, the co-founder of Middle Seat, a digital fund-raising and advertising firm. “She’s definitely doing the work.”

Many of the digital messages Warren has sent are off the news, including pleas to provide an e-mail address as a way to “sign up” and oppose Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, lauding women’s rights, or supporting Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the possible ties of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to Russia.

Warren also occasionally sends out a video of herself speaking directly to the camera on an issue. It’s a trendy technique, with Trump doing similar weekly videos.

“The earlier you start building, the better your position if you decide to run,” Pennington observed.

Warren has spent at least $2.4 million on digital advertising through mid-September this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Trump spent $8.6 million in the same time period and O’Rourke spent $4.7 million.

Not everyone has taken the approach of spending money early on a digital infrastructure. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, for example, did not build up his e-mail list in the months before making his bid for the 2016 presidential bid. That put him at a disadvantage, former aides say. For Warren in 2020, getting a big head start could be key to contending strongly for the nomination and nudging ideologically like-minded adversaries, such as Sanders, to the sidelines.

“If people coalesce around Elizabeth soon, she definitely has the best chance of any Democrat of having an easy chance of it,” said Arun Chaudhary, a partner at Revolution Messaging. “Everyone else has an incredibly hard time — both getting the nomination and in getting elected.”

There are other signs of Warren’s pre-presidential prep. The merchandise being hawked at her online store includes T-shirts branded with all 50 states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. (Warren, a dog lover, is also selling pet collars.) She’s donating money to all 50 state Democratic parties and has traveled to such places as Nevada and Wisconsin to appear on behalf of Democrats.

She is seeding state Democratic parties in the early primary and caucus states of New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada with former staffers who will presumably be loyal to her. She has released 10 years worth of tax returns. She’s even started softening with the Washington press corps, giving Washington-based reporters interviews in Senate hallways after years of marching past without pausing to answer questions.

“We punish people for announcing they are running for president too soon. But to run a grass-roots campaign you need a longer runway,” said Chaudhary.

“I’m glad she’s not being so coy about it,” Chaudhary added. “I think Americans are sick of the ‘I’m not running for president’ thing.”

Not everyone admires Warren’s early moves.

“It’s clear that Senator Warren is taking Massachusetts for granted,” said Holly Robichaud, a spokeswoman for Geoff Diehl, Warren’s Republican opponent for the Senate seat in Massachusetts.

Diehl’s campaign recently sent out a news release blasting Warren for placing a series of online ads in Oklahoma, a move that also confused some Democratic strategists.

“Wrong state, Senator,” said Diehl in the release, in which he asked her to sign a pledge to serve out her six-year Senate term if she wins.

In the last two weeks, the Globe and the Center for Responsive Politics analysis showed Warren has spent thousands of dollars trying to build an e-mail list in Oklahoma. The state had only 38 Democratic delegates in 2016 and is therefore not consequential in the Democratic primary race for the nomination.

The Oklahoma Facebook ads reached as many as 500,000 people in the state in the last two weeks. In comparison, Warren’s ads in Massachusetts reached as many as 1.6 million people in the same time frame.

That left some strategists wondering: Is she planning to announce her presidential bid from there? Is she planning a big rally in her home state?

Aides to Warren said the ads were timed to coincide with a public trip she made to the Sooner State state in late September. But Warren’s team doesn’t typically buy online ads when she travels out of state — which she does often.

If Warren does formally consider a run for president, there would be some paperwork involved before repurposing the e-mail list for a national run: She’d have to create an exploratory committee that would pay her Senate campaign fair market value for the list, according to Christian Hilland, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission.

Warren’s camp says a large e-mail list will be useful whether or not she decides to run for higher office. That’s because Warren tends to weigh in on national issues and does not shy away from using her list to nudge senators — even in her own party — in her direction.

“It’s one tool we use to fight for working families and communicate about policies that affect working families so we can make real change,” said Kristen Orthman, a spokeswoman for Warren.

Warren also uses her e-mail list to raise money for other Democrats; she has sent out fund-raising missives to her list on behalf of dozens of others.

“That’s unique,” said Pennington. “Potentially it’s a play at buying goodwill from people ahead of a national election, and showing that you’re a team player.”

]]>Despite recent ‘progressive’ ads with Colin Kaepernick, Nike gives more money to Republicans than Democratshttps://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/09/colin-kaepernick-nike-gives/
Wed, 12 Sep 2018 21:03:21 +0000https://www.opensecrets.org/news/?p=27500Despite it's recent ads Nike and its employees have spent more than three times as much supporting Republicans compared to Democrats in this election cycle.

Nike has been making headlines recently for its controversial advertisement with Colin Kaepernick which many perceive to be promoting a socially conscious message with progressive values. When it comes to political spending, however, Nike and its employees have spent more than three times as much supporting Republicans compared to Democrats in this election cycle.

Musa Okwonga, a Berlin-based artist who has written extensively on soccer, told the Washington Post that he saw Nike’s ad with Kaepernick as “the brand claiming to be “progressive” and willing “to change the status quo.”

Although Nike appears to send a specific socially conscious message in the cultural realm, in the political world Nike employees and its PAC contributed $424,000 to the Republican party and its candidates in the 2018 election cycle, compared to only $122,000 to the Democrats — the party typically associated with ‘progressive’ values today.

Nike gave 78 percent of political contributions to Republicans this cycle. With a couple notable exceptions like the 2008 and 2016 election cycles, Nike has a track record of giving much more to Republicans than Democrats in the past decade. During the 2010, 2012 and 2014 election cycles, Nike gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republicans, with 76 percent, 69 percent and 59 percent of their contributions going to the GOP in each of those cycles respectively. Nearly half of Nike’s political spending has come from individual contributions made by co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny.

Comparing Nike’s political spending to its competitors, one can see that New Balance employees (primarily their owner James S Davis and family) have given most of their political contributions to conservative outside groups and Republicans. Whereas Adidas and Under Armour have given more of their money to Democrats.

Adidas, Under Armour and their employees, have not given a significant amount in political contributions overall. Since 1996, Adidas, which is German-owned, and its employees have only made $139,000 worth of political contributions with 71 percent of their money going to Democrats and 21 percent of it going to Republicans. In the past decade, Under Armour employees have given a total of $166,000 with 84 percent of that going to Democrats and 15 percent of it going to Republicans.

Nike’s stock fluctuated greatly last past week but this week has been on the rise along with a surge in sales. The Kaepernick ad and Nike’s implicit endorsement of him and his politics have gotten Nike an explosion of attention and interest, mostly positive from those on the Left and plenty of vitriol and protests from the Right. When it comes to their political spending though, Nike is leaning towards the Republican party.

]]>Dems ramp up digital advertising effort for midterms. Trump’s doing the same for 2020https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/09/dems-ramp-up-digital-ads-for-midterms-trumps-doing-2020/
Tue, 11 Sep 2018 15:24:12 +0000https://www.opensecrets.org/news/?p=27488Democrats in Congress have greatly outspent Republicans on digital ads this cycle, but President Trump has managed to spend more than anyone else.

Texas Senate Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke and President Donald Trump have one thing in common: both are leading the charge in the digital advertising wave washing over political campaigns this election cycle.

In total, House candidates have spent over $33.3 million on digital advertising in 2018 with Democrats spending the lion’s share, $23.6 million, and Republicans spending $9.6 million, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. On the Senate side, $29.8 million has been spent on digital advertising in total during the 2018 election cycle with Democrats spending $21.5 million of that—almost three times as much as the Republicans’ $7.2 million.

Digital advertising refers to money spent on online ads, including paid ads on social media services, such as Facebook, and video sites, such as YouTube. A little over $72 million was spent on digital advertising in total by all federal candidates—except Senate candidates who aren’t up for reelection this year—in 2018.

President Trump’s reelection campaign has spent $8.6 million on digital advertising this year in advance of his 2020 election, more than any other politician this election cycle. Trump kicked off his presidential reelection campaign at the beginning of 2017—registering as a candidate on the same day as his inauguration—earlier than any other American president in history.

Texas Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke—who’s currently hot on the trails of Senator Ted Cruz in their closely watched race—has spent $4.7 million so far on digital advertising in 2018 compared to Cruz’s $251,000. No Republican in the House or Senate comes even remotely close to O’Rourke’s kind of spending on digital advertising. Democrats make up almost all the top spenders after Trump. Mike Braun, the Republican Senate candidate in Indiana, has spent the most out of any Republican candidate running for Congress with $658,000 on digital advertising this election cycle.

Political campaigns and groups spent less than one percent of their ad budgets on online advertisements during the midterm elections in 2014, according to Borrell Associates, a firm that tracks advertising data. However those same groups are expected to spend more than 22 percent of their ad budgets on online spending during the 2018 midterms.

The majority of political operatives and marketers on both sides of the aisle who focus on digital advertising have high optimism that digital budgets would increase in the political realm, according to the digital advertising company Centro. Their survey showed that one of the most promising developments in digital advertising is access to higher quality and more readily available data, with 55 percent of respondents saying that their audience data was better than before.

One of the key reasons digital advertising has recently taken off within the political realm is that political advertisers are getting better at tracking the online behavior of the constituents they’re trying to influence. Unlike the 2016 election cycle, when the biggest concerns among digital advertisers were polling data and fake news, their focus has shifted to proving the impact of digital campaigns to their clients.

With people spending more and more time online and on their phones, it’s almost surprising that it has taken political advertisers this long to spend their money and resources on digital advertisements. Although Democrats in Congress have greatly outspent Republicans on digital advertising this cycle, look for the Republicans to match the Democrats’ levels of digital advertising spending in the near future. Digital advertising is here to stay.

]]>Democrat Beto O’Rourke is creeping up on Ted Cruz in the Texas Senate race — both in fundraising and pollshttps://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/08/beto-orourke-ted-cruz-in-the-texas-senate-race/
Mon, 27 Aug 2018 15:22:59 +0000https://www.opensecrets.org/news/?p=27385Although incumbent Ted Cruz is still favored to beat challenger Beto O'Rourke in November, this is the first time in decades a Democrat has even come close to a Senate seat in Texas.

A new poll by NBC News/Marist shows GOP Sen. Ted Cruz with a narrow 4-point lead over his Democratic opponent, Rep. Beto O’Rourke, putting the Congressman from El Paso remarkably close to possibly upsetting Cruz in the general election this fall.

The Cook Political Report shifted the Texas Senate race from its “likely Republican” column to its “lean Republican” classification earlier this month, saying that recent polling suggests a tighter contest between the two. Although Cruz is still favored to win, this is the first time in decades a Democrat has even come close to being elected for a Senate seat in the Lone Star State.

Both candidates are neck and neck in fundraising, with Cruz raising $23.36 million and O’Rourke raising $23.33 million so far. A key component of O’Rourke’s campaign is his pledge not to “take a dime from PACs or special interest groups.”

His campaign raised more than $10 million in the past quarter (April-June), more than double what Cruz pulled in. O’Rourke still has $13.9 million in cash on hand whereas Cruz has $9.3 million on hand after spending approximately $4 million more than O’Rourke at this point in the election cycle.

Recent polls from Quinnipiac University put O’Rourke just 6 points behind Cruz. Another poll from Texas Lyceum, with a slightly smaller sample size, had Cruz up by just 2 points — a statistical dead heat. The Real Clear Politics polling average has Beto trailing Cruz by 6.5 points. The May Quinnipiac poll, which has a 3.5-point margin of error, put O’Rourke 11 points behind Cruz, showing the race has gotten closer in the past few months.

Cruz’s biggest campaign contributions in 2017 and 2018 have come from retirees ($2.9 million), the energy and natural resources industry ($1.6 million), finance, insurance, and real estate industries ($3.5 million) and $1.6 million from ideologically motivated donors. Ideological donors are organizations or individuals that are primarily partisan or focus on a single-issue area such as abortion, the environment, gun rights or foreign policy.

According to FEC data, Cruz’s most significant campaign expenditures have been on media, advertising, political and digital consultants, fundraising phone calls and travel. His Senate campaign has spent a total of $14.6 million on the 2018 race so far.

In this campaign cycle over the past two years, the biggest donors to O’Rourke have been Democratic/Liberal organizations and individuals ($1.5 million), lawyers and lobbyists ($1.2 million), finance, insurance and real estate industries ($1.3 million) and ideological/single-issue sources ($1.7 million).

O’Rourke’s campaign funds came from tens of thousands of individual contributions, according to the campaign, which noted earlier this year that the average donation to the campaign was $25 from online donors and $40 for donations overall.

O’Rourke spent a significant amount of his campaign contributions on media, advertising, field organizing services, salaries, and t-shirts and supplies, according to FEC data. O’Rourke claims he hasn’t hired a political consultant or pollster on his campaign thus far. He has spent a total of $10 million on his campaign at this point in the 2018 election cycle.

Suffice it to say that O’Rourke has made unusual progress in a solid red state, at least when it comes to statewide offices. Whether his fundraising and political organizing will be enough to trump Cruz in November remains to be seen.

]]>Minority candidates and Trump loyalists win big during August 14th Primaryhttps://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/08/august-14th-primary-results/
Fri, 17 Aug 2018 18:33:46 +0000https://www.opensecrets.org/news/?p=27286A victory for the transgender, Muslim and black communities on the Democratic side, while President Donald Trump continued to tighten his grip over the GOP

Jahana Hayes (center) won the Democratic nomination in Connecticut’s 5th District on August 14th(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A transgender woman in Vermont, a Muslim woman in Minnesota and a black woman in Connecticut all won their primaries, setting them up for potentially historic wins in November. On the other hand, President Donald Trump continued to tighten his grip over the GOP with his influence in Minnesota’s gubernatorial race and Wisconsin’s Senate race.

Christine Hallquist, a former energy executive who won the Democratic primary in Vermont, could be the first transgender governor in the country if she beats Republican Governor Phil Scott in November.

In Minnesota’s fifth district, Ilhan Omar, a Somali American and a Muslim won her crowded Democratic primary and is highly likely to be the first Muslim woman in Congress since she’s in a heavily Democratic district and expected to easily win the general election in the fall.

Jahana Hayes, the national Teacher of the Year in 2016, soundly defeated Mary Glassman to snap up the Democratic nomination for the fifth district in Connecticut and would be the first black woman from Connecticut in Congress if she succeeds in the fall.

These female candidates winning on Tuesday night highlights the political trend of women winning this cycle, particularly on the Democratic side. Looking at the Democrats over time, there has been a steady increase in the number of women nominated and elected, with women making up over 40 percent of Democratic candidates for the House who have won their primary this cycle, an all-time historic record. In addition, Democratic women have been more likely to win primaries and general elections than Democratic men.

In contrast, 13 percent of Republican candidates that won their primary this cycle have been women. When running as non-incumbents, women have had a lower rate of election than Republican men in general elections. Republican women have historically been less successful than Republican men in general elections, and the 2018 election cycle has shown no change in these trends.

While many minorities within the Democratic Party were having their day in the spotlight on Tuesday, another group of candidates from the GOP was having their day at the ballot box. Those in the Republican Party who supported President Trump and spoke well of him also succeeded in their recent primaries. Some who crossed Trump and spoke ill of him, even years ago, ended up sinking.

The former governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty was defeated in his attempt to reclaim the Republican nomination for governor. Mr. Pawlenty had disparaged and criticized Mr. Trump for being “unsound, uninformed, unhinged and unfit to be president” during the 2016 election campaign. Pawlenty lost to Jeff Johnson a local official who hammered him for being anti-Trump while Johnson himself courted Trump and eventually got his coveted endorsement in the race.

“The Republican Party has shifted,” Mr. Pawlenty told reporters on the way out of his election night party. “It is the era of Trump, and I’m just not a Trump-like politician,” the New York Times reported.

Pawlenty outraised Johnson by a huge margin, raising four times as much as Johnson, but Pawlenty’s scathing attack on Trump shortly after the infamous Access Hollywood video was a big part of Johnson’s criticism of his opponent. Johnson concentrated on highlighting his closeness to Trump, in contrast to Pawlenty, even though Pawlenty said many times that he supported Trump’s policy priorities and outcomes.

Another example of the Trump fealty phenomenon was on display in the race for the Republican nomination for Senate in Wisconsin. Marine Corps veteran Kevin Nicholson (R) and state Sen. Leah Vukmir (R) went head to head on Tuesday to see who would face Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) who is up for reelection this year. Despite raising almost $1.5 million less than Nicholson, Vukmir easily won the nomination. Each candidate tried to express their strong allegiance to President Trump.

Vukmir and Nicholson each had a billionaire-funded super PAC supporting them in the race. Illinois businessman Richard Uihlein, the founder of Uline Corp, spent $10 million to help Nicholson. On the other hand multi-billionaire Diane Hendricks, a Wisconsin businesswoman and film producer backed Vukmir. In a somewhat surprising show of party unity, Uihlein and Hendricks have already scheduled a fundraiser together on Friday for the nominee, according to Politico.

]]>Open seats and retirements in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Connecticut take spotlight ahead of Tuesday’s primarieshttps://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/08/minnesota-wisconsin-and-connecticut-primaries/
Mon, 13 Aug 2018 16:16:26 +0000https://www.opensecrets.org/news/?p=27206Congressional primaries Tuesday in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Vermont have a handful of open seats and toss-up districts, which will be hotly watched by both parties.

Congressional primaries Tuesday in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, and Vermont have a handful of open seats and a few toss-up districts, which will be closely watched by both parties.

Most of the action is on the House side, but there are a couple of big Senate races in play in Minnesota and Wisconsin. In districts where one party has a stronghold, open-seat primaries essentially function as general elections because the candidate who wins the primary for his or her party will likely win in November.

Minnesota

Minnesota is a purple state where Republicans control the state legislature but the state’s governor, U.S. senators and five of the eight House seats are held by Democrats.

The land of 10,000 lakes, which has historically been a particularly politically active state with unusually high voter turnout, has a number of competitive primaries next week.

Incumbent Sen. Tina Smith (D), who was appointed to Al Franken’s vacated seat in January, is facing former Republican and White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter in a Democratic primary ahead of Minnesota’s Senate special election in November.

With a $4.8 million war chest and many Democratic Party establishment endorsements, Smith is expected to win the primary but will face a tougher challenge against a Republican opponent in November.

Minnesota’s other Democratic senator, Amy Klobuchar, can rest easy next week. She has no serious challengers in the primary and last won re-election in 2012 by 35 percentage points. It’s highly unusual for a state to have two Senate seats in play in one year. In an election year when control of Congress could easily hinge on a single Senate seat, Minnesota will be closely watched — particularly the special election.

Walz’s departure creates competitive primaries on both sides of the aisle.

On the Republican side, Jim Hagedorn is making a third attempt at the district after losing to Walz by less than one percentage point in 2016. Hagedorn has raised $822,000 ahead of the Republican primary. State Sen. Carla Nelson, Hagedorn’s main opponent in the primary, has raised $487,000.

On the Democratic side, Dan Feehan, a former Defense assistant secretary during the Obama administration, is the favorite to win the primary. He’s raised the most money out of all the Democratic candidates with $1.1 million and was endorsed by Walz along with former Vice President Joe Biden.

In the 2nd Congressional District, Republican incumbent Rep. Jason Lewis is running again. He will go unopposed in primary but may face a serious challenge from Democrat Angie Craig in the general election. Craig, a former St. Jude Medical executive who ran against Lewis in 2016, has raised $2.3million to Lewis’ $1.9 million.

The 3rd Congressional District has incumbent Rep. Erik Paulsen (R) running again, with a large fundraising haul of $3.8 million so far. Although Paulsen’s unopposed in the primary, he’s expected to face a stiff challenge from the Democrats in the fall.

Entrepreneur Dean Phillips, who’s raised 2.5 million is the favorite to win the race.* Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both won this district during their presidential campaigns, and it’s a targeted district by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

In the 8th Congressional District, Nolan’s retirement has resulted in a competitive primary for both the parties. Although Obama won this district by 6 percentage points in 2012, President Donald Trump won by a 15-point margin in 2016.

Joe Radinovich, a former state legislator and Nolan’s campaign manager, and state Rep. Jason Metsa are leading Democrats in fundraising with $322,000 and $259,000, respectively. On the Republican side, St. Louis County Commissioner Pete Stauber, who has raised $948,000 so far, is expected to win his primary.

Wisconsin

The most significant political surprise coming out of the Badger State this year was obviously Speaker Paul Ryan deciding to retire. This leaves a big question mark in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District. The Cook Political Report considers it leaning Republican.

Ryan has endorsed Republican Bryan Steil, a former staffer of his to be his successor. Steil has raised $750,000 so far. On the Democratic side, there’s a fierier primary contest with ironworker Randy Bryce against teacher Cathy Myers. Bryce, who has been endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the United Auto Workers union, has raised a whopping $6.2 million while Myers has raked in $1.2 million so far.

In the Senate primary, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) is up forreelection this year. Although she faces no serious primary challenger next week, she’s raised a stunning sum of $21.5 million so far to ward off her Republican challengers during the general election. She will face off against either Marine Corps veteran Kevin Nicholson (R) or state Sen. Leah Vukmir (R). Vukmir has been endorsed by Ryan and other national and state party leaders while Nicholson has focused on his military service and being a political outsider. Nicholson has raised $3.5 million andVukmir has raised $2 million so far. Illinois businessman Richard Uihlein, the founder of Uline Corp., has had an outsized influence on trying to get Nicholson to clinch the Republican nomination. In all, Uihlein-supported groups have spent $10.7 million on the race in support of Nicholson and against Vukmir, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Connecticut

The 5th Congressional District unexpectedly became Connecticut’s most contested election after incumbent Elizabeth Esty (D) announced in April that she would not seek re-election due to her handling of sexual harassment allegations against her former chief of staff. The district is considered solidly blue by the Cook Political Report and so will likely be taken by another Democrat. This has created a competitive primary between former Simsbury First Selectman Mary Glassman and Jahana Hayes, the 2016 National Teacher of the Year.

The Connecticut Democratic Party endorsed Glassman over Hayes after two rounds of voting at the state party convention in May. Glassman, who has raised $453,000 so far, supports keeping the Affordable Care Act over moving to a single-payer healthcare system. Hayes, on the other hand, has raised $459,000 and supports single-payer healthcare. Hayes would be the first black woman ever elected to Congress in the state if she won.

Senator Chris Murphy (D) is up for reelection this year but does not have a serious challenger for his primary. He’s raised $13.3 million so far.

Vermont

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) is up for reelection but as an independent doesn’t have a primary. He’ll sail into the general election with $8.5 million raised so far. The sole congressional seat in the state is held by Rep. Peter Welch (D), who has raised $596,000 and is likely to win his primary and keep his seat as well.

Correction: *In a previous version of this story, Adam Jennings was listed as a Democratic primary candidate in Minnesota’s Third District. Although Jennings did not file a termination report with the FEC, he was not actually on the ballot for the primary.

]]>A federal judge in Washington issued a ruling Friday rejecting a regulation that has allowed large donors of politically active nonprofits to remain anonymous.

The ruling will create a path for new requirements that would require nonprofits to disclose donors who give more than $200 toward impacting federal elections. The IRS allows nonprofits and social welfare organizations to spend money on elections so long as it’s not their “primary purpose.” Since they are not required to make their donors public, such politically active nonprofits are often referred to as“dark money” groups.

U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell found that a Federal Election Commission (FEC) regulation used by nonprofit organizations that engage in political activity to shroud donors in secrecy was invalid. The judge said the rule failed to uphold the standard which Congress intended when it required the disclosure of politically related spending.

“The challenged regulation facilitates such financial ‘routing,’ blatantly undercuts the congressional goal of fully disclosing the sources of money flowing into federal political campaigns, and thereby suppresses the benefits intended to accrue from disclosure … ,” Howell, an Obama appointee, wrote in her decision. The ruling is expected to be appealed by the FEC and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, the defendants in the case.

The ruling only applies to what the FEC terms “independent expenditures” — that is, communications that explicitly call on voters to support or oppose certain candidates. While independent expenditures make up a significant portion of “dark money” spent in elections — more than $733 million since 2010, when the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision came down — it is not the only way dark money gets into elections. These groups spend heavily on stealthy political ads framed as “issue ads,” and this decision will not affect their ability to buy such ads in the future.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a watchdog group in Washington brought the lawsuit against Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS after GPS did not disclose the donors who contributed to the $6 million the group spent trying to defeat incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) in 2012. CREW first lodged a complaint with the FEC, which dismissed it, before filing suit.

“This ruling looks like a major game changer,” Noah Bookbinder, CREW’s executive director, said in a statement. “Based on this ruling, the public should know a whole lot more about who is giving money for the purpose of influencing an election, and it will be much harder for donors to anonymously contribute to groups that advertise in elections.”

Barring an appeal, the FEC has 30 days to reconsider its original decision to dismiss the complaint against Crossroads GPS and 45 days to issue interim regulations that comport with Howell’s findings.

]]>Rep. Jim Jordan vies for speaker as atypical fundraiserhttps://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/08/rep-jim-jordan-vies-for-speaker-as-atypical-fundraiser/
Mon, 06 Aug 2018 20:41:28 +0000https://www.opensecrets.org/news/?p=27146Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is campaigning to be speaker of the House without the typical fundraising background of former speakers.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who announced in July that he would run for speaker of the House, has an unusually high number of contributions from ideological or single-issue groups and doesn’t have a strong record in regards to fundraising, according to an analysis by OpenSecrets.

Twenty-one percent of Jordan’s money raised this cycle has come from party and candidate committees, leadership PACs or single-issue PACs. In comparison, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), his opponents in the race for the speakership, have raised only 1.2 percent and 3.9 percent respectively of their political contributions from ideological or single-issue groups this cycle.

At the beginning of each congressional session (every two years), each major party conference or caucus nominates a candidate for speaker and members customarily elect the speaker by roll call vote. To be elected, a candidate must receive an absolute majority of the votes cast in the House.

Percentage-wise, Jordan has raised more money from ideological sources this cycle than any other speaker of the House did during the cycle before they became speaker since the Center for Responsive Politics started collecting campaign finance data. In his entire career in Congress, he’s raised over 6 percent of his contributions from ideological sources, which is also above average when compared to others who have run for the speakership.

Ideological or single-issue PACs are usually created by organizations that are primarily partisan or focus on a single-issue area such as abortion, the environment, gun rights or foreign policy. Many of these groups — the National Rifle Association, EMILY’s List — are well known and capable of launching high-profile media campaigns to mobilize their members and bring out support for politicians who back their ideology or specific issue.

Some of the more well-known organizations and individuals that Jordan’s ideological/single issue contributions have come from include Citizens United ($5,000); the House Freedom Fund ($21,200 in earmarked contributions from individual donors); FreedomWorks PAC ($24,933 in earmarked contributions); Eye of the Tiger PAC (Scalise’s leadership PAC, $2,500); the Senate Conservatives Fund ($7,700); the National Rifle Association ($1,000); and a couple of anti-abortion PACs ($2,000).

However, when it comes to his fundraising prowess, Jordan has consistently raised less money compared to the average member of Congress, let alone those vying for leadership positions.

McCarthy and Scalise have raised $6.6 million and $4.1 million respectively as candidates this cycle and their leadership PACs, Majority Committee PAC and Eye of the Tiger PAC, have raised millions more for them as well.

Jordan, on the other hand, has raised only $436,000 this cycle and does not currently have a leadership PAC of his own. The previous two speakers of the House, Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and John Boehner (R-Ohio), each raised over $9 million in the cycles before they became speaker. Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) also raised millions during the cycles before they became speaker and had formidable leadership PACs to boot.

Donating to other representatives in one’s caucus has been another typical responsibility of the speaker and speaker candidates. Jordan has donated $60,000 to others this cycle whereas McCarthy, Scalise and recent speakers of the House have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in the cycle when they were running for speaker.

However, Jordan’s nontraditional fundraising credentials and ideological background are a big part of why he’s running and why those who support him are doing so. He’s running to reform the speakership and the policies passed in the House.

In a letter to his fellow Republican colleagues, Jordan said he wanted power in the House to be decentralized such that committee assignments and leadership positions are made on “talent, merit and experience,” whereas many such decisions are made allegedly based on fundraising abilities currently. Policy-wise, he said he wants to support President Trump and bring “real change” to Congress by trying to repeal Obamacare, passing welfare reform, building a border wall, making the 2017 tax cuts permanent and ending funding for Planned Parenthood.

Besides his nontraditional fundraising background, another reservation that some have in regards to his candidacy for speakership is a recent sexual assault scandal that he has been connected to.

Jordan, a former Division 1 wrestler, was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State from 1986 to 1994. During and before his time at the university, a team doctor, Richard Strauss, allegedly had questionable interactions with teammates and students. Eight former Ohio State University wrestlers have come out against Jordan in recent weeks for reportedly failing to intervene with Strauss, whom they claim was molesting them and students.

]]>Analysis: A week in the political life of the NRAhttps://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/07/analysis-a-week-in-the-political-life-of-the-nra/
Wed, 25 Jul 2018 17:12:34 +0000https://www.opensecrets.org/news/?p=27014In the past week, the National Rifle Association has punctured the political airwaves again and again for their connection to one scandal after the next.

In the past week, the National Rifle Association has punctured the political airwaves again and again for their connection to one scandal after the next.

The week started with their connection to alleged Kremlin agent Maria Butina who was arrested for acting as an unregistered agent of the Russian government. This revelation was closely followed by a complaint by the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) alleging that they created a shell company to coordinate with Republican Senate candidates.

The week was rounded out with the announcement that nonprofits like the NRA will no longer be required to disclose donor information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the discovery of some slightly strange campaign contribution habits of theirs. Lastly, Florida NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer filed an inflammatory lawsuit for the ‘hate and vitriol’ directed at her by some NRA critics, such as being called a “redneck old geezer,” amongst other names.

We delve into each one of these NRA controversies for their connection to money in politics and transparency.

On Monday last week, Federal authorities charged Maria Butina, a Russian citizen living in Washington, D.C. with conspiracy to act as an illegal agent of the Russian government, including for attempting to establish “back-channel” relations with American officials on behalf of the Kremlin, the Justice Department said.

Butina had attended various NRA events over the past few years and was allegedly part of a scheme to funnel Russian money through the NRA to the Trump campaign. Some of this money was perhaps routed through NRA entities that were not required to disclose their funding sources, POLITICO reported. Butina’s lawyer denied this allegation on Monday last week, and the NRA has not commented on this matter so far.

Butina even had a project proposal outlined in a 2015 email where she was requesting $125,000 from an American political operative connected to the NRA for her to participate in “all upcoming major conferences” of the Republican party. The court documents appear to make multiple references to the NRA in many parts of the affidavit.

On the same day Butina was arrested last week, the nonpartisan public-interest watchdog Campaign Legal Center (CLC) submitted a 25-page complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that the NRA used a consulting firm, OnMessage, to evade federal rules prohibiting coordination between congressional candidates and outside spending groups like the NRA.

The NRA allegedly violated federal law by using a common vendor to illegally coordinate with four Republican Senate candidates, Tom Cotton, Cory Gardner, Thom Tillis and Ron Johnson, according to the complaint.The complaint alleges that Republican consulting firm OnMessage who the NRA hired created a shell corporation called Starboard which was located at the same address, using the same staff and with essentially the same business model in order to share and use strategic information between the NRA and the Senate candidacies of the four Republican Senate candidates during the 2014 and 2016 election cycles.

CLC claims that Starboard and OnMessage are effectively the same organization and that the NRA’s campaign and lobbying arms worked with this mysterious shell company, Starboard, to access relevant and electorally-sensitive information in order to strategically benefit the four GOP Senate campaigns.

Also, last week came some new revelations regarding the NRA’s political spending from the FEC’s second quarter campaign finance filings. Apparently, the NRA PAC made a series of $4,950 contributions to various Republican Congressional and Senatorial candidates in June, according to their FEC filing. The NRA contributed the slightly unusual amount of $4,950 specifically, which is $50 less than the maximum contribution limit of $5,000 because reporters typically only looking for maximum contributions wouldn’t find these contributions, nonprofit news organization ProPublica reported.

In other news the Treasury Department, which announced a rule change late Monday that some nonprofit groups will no longer have to give the IRS the names of donors who give them $5,000 or more.

Groups impacted by the move include 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations — like the NRA, the Koch-aligned Americans for Prosperity, Planned Parenthood Action Fund and 501(c)(6) trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Those organizations are commonly referred to as “dark money” groups because they are not required to publicly disclose the sources of funding that has been used to support political causes.

Critics say this new rule change will allow politically active nonprofits like the NRA to pour anonymous “dark money” into elections with even less oversight than they already face.

Under the new rules, 501(c)(3) charities will still have to identify their most generous donors to the IRS, but 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations and 501(c)(6) business associations will not. The IRS calls the move a “significant reform to protect personal information.” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the change “will in no way limit transparency.”

The IRS acknowledged in its statement announcing the change that it had sometimes accidentally released confidential donor information. In 2013, the IRS posted unredacted tax forms revealing donors to the nonprofit Republican Governors Association Public Policy Committee, the Center for Public Integrity reported at the time.

Another unusual event related to the NRA from last week was its longtime lobbyist in Florida Marion Hammer filing lawsuits seeking more than $2 million in damages from five men she says have targeted her with “hate and vitriol” due to her Second Amendment advocacy after the Parkland massacre. She also sued a sixth man separately, 66-year-old Miami resident Brian Fitzgerald for claims of harassment, cyberstalking, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Hammer is notorious in Florida political circles for calling local lawmakers traitors to the Constitution and for making it easier for people to obtain guns by relying on her base of politically active followers to criticize politicians. In a series of emails he began sending on February 18, Fitzgerald called Hammer a “dyspeptic old bag,” a “redneck old geezer” and said she was working to get people killed everyday by promoting NRA’s gun policies.

According to Hammer’s lawsuits, Fitzgerald and others “have transcended mere criticism and has employed threats, harassment, and personal abuse to try to humiliate and intimidate Hammer in a manner that is utterly intolerable in a civilized community.”

However, some critics like Orlando Sentinel columnist George Diaz say Hammer is now suing others for doing the same thing that she has been criticized in the past for — calling people names and trying to shame them for their actions. Diaz said Hammer’s tactics were “rich with snowflake irony” and that she refers to herself as a scared old grandmother even though she actually spends her time “firebombing legislators who aren’t in lockstep with the NRA.”

]]>How to search for the new Kavanaugh SCOTUS ads via the new Facebook and Twitter Transparency Toolshttps://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/07/facebook-and-twitters-transparency-tools-kavanaugh/
Wed, 18 Jul 2018 18:44:32 +0000https://www.opensecrets.org/news/?p=26950Looking at the latest round of political advertisements for and against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh provides a good example of Facebook and Twitter's new Ad Transparency tools.

Facebook and Twitter recently released new advertisement transparency tools after receiving months of intense scrutiny and heated criticism, particularly Facebook, for their role in enabling Russian-linked organizations to use deceptive ads to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Facebook

For all advertisements, political or not, Facebook released a new tab called “Info and Ads” on every Facebook page’s account that allows any of its 2 billion users to see all of the ads that an account is currently running across Facebook, Messenger and Instagram.

Regarding political and “issue” ads, Facebook created a new database where one can search for political ads by issue, candidate name, political party, etc. You can now see who paid for an ad, how many impressions it has received, how much the group paid for that ad, and a percentage breakdown of the gender, age and location (state by state) of the people who viewed the ad.

Any advertiser that wants to run political ads must now go through Facebook’s authorization process that requires them to reveal their identity and location, and advertisers will only have a week’s grace period before those unauthorized will have their ads paused. Facebook plans to monitor political ads with a combination of artificial intelligence and thousands of newly hired ad reviewers as a part of its doubling of its security team from 10,000 to 20,000 this year. The reviewers and A.I. will analyze ad images, text and linked websites looking for political content.

Twitter

Twitter calls its new tool an “Ad Transparency Center” where you can search for the handle of the account you want to see promoted tweets for. Twitter’s tool will then pull up all the tweets that the particular account has promoted within the last seven days as well as how many likes and retweets its received. Besides aggregating promoted tweets from a particular account in one place, there’s no further information Twitter is currently providing, such as how much is being spent on the ad, whom it is targeting and the parent company of the organization buying the ad.

Regarding political campaign content, Twitter requires that advertisers promoting such content around U.S. federal elections go through a certification process as well. Twitter requires such political advertisers be certified by registering with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and providing Twitter an FEC ID. Organizations and individuals not registered with the FEC must provide a U.S. passport and a notarized form to Twitter. Thus far, Twitter has not said it will disclose this information to the public. If you search for advertisers on Twitter running campaigns for federal elections specifically, you’ll be able to see additional details, including the identity of the organization funding the campaign, the amount spent to promote the ad and ad targeting demographics.

Although these actions taken by Facebook, and to a lesser extent by Twitter, appear to be moving in the direction of more transparency, there is still concern that the organizations that fund political content can have confusing or misleading names that obscure their true purpose. Unless people are willing to go searching and investigating on the internet themselves, the information Facebook and Twitter provides on their political ad database may leave users unclear on the true source and motive of an advertisement.

A Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch that the page administrator who purchases an ad chooses who to disclose as having paid for it. Facebook requires that this disclosure info be complete and accurate, and that advertisers follow applicable laws. However, these rules still seems to allow advertisers to cite some shell organization or donor group name that could obscure where the money really comes from.

Examining the latest round of political advertisements for and against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh provides a good example.

Seeing that an ad was paid for by “Americans for Prosperity” wouldn’t immediately inform most Americans that it’s a conservative “dark money” group linked to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch. On the other side, ads to fight Kavanaugh’s confirmation have been bought by “Demand Justice,” a new dark money group with a liberal-leaning agenda.

A notable aspect of Facebook’s political ad database is how repetitive and crowded it is. It shows just how easy it is to create a large fleet of ads on the platform. Ads with identical text and images can appear dozens or hundreds of times in the same search, arguably because each ad is targeted to a different demographic.